The present invention relates generally to tennis ball retrievers, more particularly to a tennis ball retriever having a one-touch release.
Tennis is a very popular sport. An effective and economic way of practicing the game is to repeatedly hit the balls fed by a machine. A large number of tennis balls will be used in practice, therefore a tennis ball retrieving device is often used to retrieve the balls. The existing tennis ball retrievers are mostly heavy, inconvenient to use, and expensive, or may not be very effective.
The present invention provides a useful and novel one-touch release tennis ball retriever that is light, easy to use, and inexpensive.
In one preferred embodiment of the invention, the one-touch release tennis ball retriever comprises a tennis ball tube, a handle assembly, and a one-touch release mechanism. The tennis ball tube is of tubular shape generally, having an opening slot at the lower end of the tennis ball tube, a tube outer surface, and a tube inner surface. The handle assembly comprises a first handle piece, a second handle piece, a first fixing piece, a second fixing piece, a tip fixing means, a middle fixing means, and an end fixing means. The one-touch release mechanism further comprises a stop and slip pin, a first lever piece, a second lever piece, a first pivot, a second pivot, and a lever mounting means.
The tennis ball retriever of the present invention can be used by positioning the lower end of the tennis ball tube close to the tennis ball, and then push the tube by holding the handle assembly and move downward. The tennis ball will slip into the tube by pushing the stop and slip pin of the one-touch release mechanism. The stop and slip pin will bounce back to ordinary position after the push and stop the falling of the tennis ball so that the stop and slip pin locks the tennis balls, and all the balls collected will remain inside the tennis ball tube. To release the balls inside the tube, the lever of the one-touch release mechanism must be pressed so the stop and slip pin will retract and give way to the gravities of the balls so that the balls will fall down. By removing the finger that is pressing the lever, the stop and slip pin will return to its normal position.
In another preferred embodiment, the stop and slip pin can also be controlled by a spring attached inside between the base and the upper level.